A Rational Cosmology: The Universe Cannot Be Destroyed

Essay VIII

This is Essay VIII of Mr. Stolyarov's series, "A Rational Cosmology," which seeks to present objective, absolute, rationally grounded views of terms such as universe, matter, volume, space, time, motion, sound, light, forces, fields, and even the higher-order concepts of life, consciousness, and volition. See the index of all the essays in "A Rational Cosmology" here.

The universe is existence. If the universe could be destroyed, then, someday, it would be possible for existence not to exist! Such an assertion stands in clear opposition to the irrefutable axiom of existence.

Let the reader recall from our discussion of the three fundamental axioms of existence, identity, and consciousness that the statement "Existence does not exist" is tantamount to saying, ""That which has the essential property of existing does not have the essential property of existing," or claiming that A does not equal A. (Note that the word "that" in the above phrase is not used to denote any single entity, but rather every entity that has the property of existing.)

It is conceivable, that, following the passage of a large amount of time, no entity that currently exists will remain in existence. The currently existing entities will, in that case, be transformed into some other entities. An entity, unlike the universe, must have a beginning and can have an end.

But the new entities that come about, whatever they are, will exist, and will comprise the universe. To say that the universe can end at time X is to say that all the entities that exist at time X will simultaneously not exist at time X, which is a blatant contradiction in terms.

The fact that the universe cannot be destroyed can be used to refute, once again, a whole host of theistic and empiricist-positivist theories, but the most prominent of these is the Big Crunch theory, a companion to the Big Bang theory, which proposes that, someday, the universe should shrink back to form the singularity that gave it rise.